Sunday 25 December 2011

Christmas day poems

Happy Christmas, all.  I'm in a poetry writing mood today.  I'll add poems here as I write them. Let's see how many I can manage.


Forced tears
by Huckleberry Hax

When you can't cry,
squeeze your eyes tight and
cover them;
wail;
beat the table blindly.

If it helps, think of someone you loved.
Or invert your eyelids.

If nothing else works, focus
on what will happen to you
if your absence of grief is noted.


Christmas shopping
by Huckleberry Hax

On the way, a
red car cuts across me at the roundabout.
Engine over-revving, he flicks Vs at me
through the window as he passes.  His
skin is white like thawing snow.  His lips
make a frozen
F.


Praise
by Huckleberry Hax

To bring up at that point she did oft’ disappoint was a case of exceptionally bad timing.
To push on ahead about poems not read was a hole dug that offered no climbing.
My brother might say that the mater’s okay but a fool primes a fuse that waits priming.
In concession today, she did casually say she dislikes ‘those new poems’ which aren’t rhyming.


Wednesday 21 December 2011

Your clothing is still downloading... final proof on the way


Look at this shiny cover!  The edits have been made, the final text uploaded, the cover designed and the 'OK' button clicked.  Along the way I learned that when paragraphs jump themselves completely onto the next page rather than leave a line all by itself at the bottom of the previous one, this is called 'orphan control'.  Yes.

The cheery email from lulu announcing the final proof paperback's postage arrived today... so I can probably expect the package within the next three weeks, what with it being seasonal and everything.

Once I'm satisfied everything's in good order, I'll probably throw a launch event: read a few extracts, flip the switch on the web page which will let you download the PDF for free, and so on.  It'll probably be some time in January, so keep an eye for notices if this in any way attracts the tendrils of your interest.

Monday 19 December 2011

On SL profiles and hate speech

Following some recent events in SL within the literary community, I would like to make clear my views on people putting prejudiced, specifically hatred inciting remarks in their profiles, my own actions in response to this and what I would like event hosts to consider as their own response.  I’m writing this as a blog entry because it’s too big to fit on my own profile; I will link to this web page from there.  This will also form the policy I use at any events I host and will be available as a notecard from the Nancy Redgrave Building.

Monday 12 December 2011

Christmas and SL

Here's my December column for AVENUE magazine.
Photography by Brie Wonder


Christmas in Secondlife® is a slightly odd thing.  Land owners texture their soil in snow, home owners erect prim Christmas trees alongside  fireplaces (complete with socks hanging from the mantle), and the increasingly complex creations of the fashion industry manifest in a month-long trade of assorted red outfits with white and fluffy trim.  It's sort of like being trapped inside a slightly sexed-up version of a Coca-Cola commercial: on the one hand a soothing and familiar experience that activates those long-ago blurred memories of the undefinable magic and naivety of Christmas; on the other, a guilty pleasure in the incongruity between childhood innocence and adult sexuality, short santa-girl skirts hinting at pleasures in front of the fireplace that never once occurred to us on those long Christmas Eves spent in front of the window and watching the sky.

Saturday 3 December 2011

Your clothing is still downloading... draft print version arrives

Lulu.com have excelled themselves.  Just three days after the final words of 'Your clothing is still downloading' were written, the paperback version of the first draft has plopped through my letterbox.  Time, now, to get editing with my pen.  I also - as you can see - need to start thinking about a cover design...